Manifestation

8.25.2011

I woke up in the early morning stiff and sore from work the night before. This Tuesday morning, is slightly different from all the other Tuesday’s during the year that I can think of, save one other… and thats because this Tuesday morning is exactly 11 days away from when I get to witness the biggest fire I have ever seen, again! That’s right! The man burns. But alas, during the week leading up to Burning Man getting out of bed can still have it’s challenges. I am excited to see the man burn, but I still have a lot of work to do to get there. So after my protein smoothie I embarked on the first mission of the day. I intended to attend my friend Katie’s yoga class. I ended up going, but when I got there I could tell that trying to keep up with her and the other student’s pace in that class was going to kill me. So I ended up doing my own yoga sequence and going at my own pace, for where my energy was at that morning I at first felt bad that Katie would take it personally I wasn’t following her flow, but by the end of her hour and a half class I knew I had come to the right place, and more importantly everything I was doing was what I needed to be doing to get my energy moving. 

After meditating outside the class near the fountain at Light and Love Yoga, I realized how excited yet still nervous I was to be taking over the Kid’s Yoga for my friend Jodi, who is going back to school. No kid’s were showing up, which was fine with me. I walked around the room making it yogafied, drawing stick figures on the white board in various asanas. I got to practice the holding space incase someone did  show up. And sure enough, a lady manifested out of thin air with a baby. But my mentor intercepted her at the door, and told her that class was cancelled because no one had shown up at the time the schedule said class started. Again, this was fine with me, because after the lady with the baby went away, I spent the remaining time I had left before I got to lead my friends through a restorative yoga class, with my mentor talking things through about burning man, finances, relationships, thought and behavioral patterns, and family. I found it really helped calm my nerves that up until I had decided to go to yoga that morning had really been starting to get the better of me.

After yoga school I hooked up with with my friend Michael Crolene, aka the Handy Man,  and we went shopping at five different stores around town. After which we went swimming in the ocean. After which I went to my job because I hadn’t eaten since noon and grabbed a bite to eat before heading over to Dave Crolene’s. We had worked out a deal where I would do the work he was going to do, some metal work, and he would tune up the bike I used last year on the playa. By metal work, I mean I got to use a belt sander to polish the rust off of some heavy duty metal knee joints and metal feet to the metal legs of Devachan’s new 30 ft METAL flag pole. I got home by midnight, covered in sand, sweat, metal shavings, and smiling from ear to ear. I cleaned up quietly, as to not disturb anybody at that hour, and started piling my clothes and costumes into neatly stacked piles near my bed, staging it for the packing I have yet to do.  

Now there are 10 days until the man is burnt. And instead of rushing around, forgetting to eat, doing crazy amounts of yoga, I decided today needed to be a little easier. Around noon I went out driving around with none other than Handy Man Crolene, on a mission to pick up the last minute supplies we still had to get for Burning Man. On our leisurely trip through town we hit almost every red light imaginable. Not it bother us, we felt like all the little obstacles we ran into... the red lights, the road construction, the closed lanes and the fun police were put there to slow us down for a very specific reason.

I was able to enjoy myself, the drive, and the company of my friend. We discussed how we were going to finance the drive up, how the state of our emotions were running pretty high leading up to the burn, how I still needed to get a pair of sandals and a couple more things, how I had called my boss that morning to ask for the day off on Thursday so that so I could pack for Friday when I leave, teach my new friend Cassie some yoga at the beach when she gets off work, and most importantly spend some time with my girl, Petrea, before the burn. <3, but how he was too busy to talk to me. We cranked the volume and pumped out our favorite Bonobo songs, singing along either like mad men or true fans. After listening to the same songs over and over, we began creating our own flows over top of the music, rhyming and rapping to the rhythm of the music and the flow of the traffic. We hit every where we intended to go on playa time, meaning I was almost late for work later, but the important thing I think is we did it all, we are essentially ready, and love in our hearts is growing and expanding.

When we got done shopping, we hit up Swami’s beach to take a quick dip before I had tables to wait. I pulled into an empty parking spot... and when I looked down… there was something there waiting for me... a brand new pair of sandals! I could tell the last car had left them, so I decided to see if anybody came back and appeared to be looking for them while we got ready to go. After a while, no one came, and we hit the beach to meet our friend Jackie. She showed up just as I finished my sun salutations and we decided to go swimming together. The water was only 3 degrees cooler than the air temperature, and it was warm enough to stay in with out getting to cold. Plus the water is almost always glassy at Swami's. 

As I was saying, the water felt great, and I caught a few tiny waves. But I had to be to work by 5 and I was running out of time. So I parted ways with Handy Man & Jackie. When I got to work, I decided that I should try one more time to ask for the day off of work for all the above mentioned reasons. My coworker Gabi was just leaving, and it was her last day, but my new boss Cassie seeing an opportunity to make my request work out easily for the both of us, decided to ask Gabi if she could make all my wishes to come true. She asked Gabi if she would like a shift tomorrow night, and that it would be covering for me. Gabi and I locked eyes, and she said yes! HOORAH! After celebrating by doing a little victory dance, I got to my work. And as I worked the night went by as seamlessly as creamy peanut butter or really good wine. My heart felt so warm and so open. The whole night was at that moment altered. And despite the tables I had to bus, the food I had to run, the awkwardly silent customers, the really talkative customers, the customers who wanted to stay way past closing, the customers who spoke with funny british accents, the gate that we had to fix the hinges to, the refrigerator that was broken for half the night, the awkwardly silent mr. fix-it dude from russia, or the babies that were giggling, shouting, and making tremendous amounts of mess, as if a localized miniature hurricane had attacked their bowl of rice (actually the babies were the best part)…..  I loved, and opened even deeper in my capacity to love every moment.

Namaste.